Testing times ahead for the Yahapalana leaders

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Maithripala Sirisena. The young Sirisena, a dropout from a British university, must realise that the current Government is a combination of many parties and his father is not the supreme leader like the former President

By Insider

The last two weeks has been very testing times for the President and the Prime Minister. Overtly both seem to say and do the right things. But for them delivering on their promises has been a big problem. 

For the President certainly the news on his son’s conduct would have been a shocker. The young man, an old boy of Royal College Colombo 7, had in 2008 got into a similar brawl, ironically with the current FCID Chief’s son in the east. It was then settled amicably with the intervention of the former President. 

The young Sirisena, a dropout from a British university, must realise that the current Government is a combination of many parties and his father is not the supreme leader like the former President. He should not embarrass his father in this way and bring disrepute to the Government, because the Joint Opposition is on the lookout for any opportunity to embarrass the President. 

The public rally last week in Ratnapura and the Joint Opposition loyalists winning in Arachikattuwa convincingly over the UNP surely must be a wakeup call for all those advisors in Temple Trees and for the few Ministers walking a couple of feet above the ground to stop globetrotting and focus on fixing the domestic issues. 

SriLankan Airlines 

Take SriLankan Airlines; if the critical appointments to some of the key positions in the airline like the Chairman, the Board of Directors and the CEO had been done on merit, the airline by now would have got its act together and moved towards financial stability. Instead cronies with little or no experience or competence were appointed. 

The indecision on the part of the Board when it came to cancelling the aircraft orders in 2005 have now resulted in the airline taking a hit of over $ 100 million. Whose money is this? The taxpayers’. The Chairman has publicly happily dismissed the Weliamuna Report to protect his business friends. 

It is people like Weliamuna who helped this Government to come to power. He was shot at by goons of the past regime, maybe the Chairman and the Board don’t know that. Weliamuna and civil society want the scoundrels and plunderers of SriLankan Airlines to be charged, but so far they have got away for want of leadership from the Government. 

Central Bank 

The situation with regard to the Central Bank is no better; from day one the management of the bank has been a nightmare for the Prime Minister, the Minister in charge of the Central Bank thanks to a weak Monetary Board. 

The conduct of the former Governor, the current revelations from a leaked report and the super ‘un-normal’ profit made by the controversial Perpetual Treasuries have given a new impetus for the Joint Opposition to use these latest revelations extensively for the local Government elections. The previous Governor still travels with the Prime Minister and takes the key decisions for the Central Bank from outside according to sources. 

The current Governor, a one-time advisor to Nivard Cabral, a total outsider other than his claim to playing rugger with the UNP Chairman, does not seem to have the clout or the bandwidth to influence Government policy beyond a point. He has so far not taken action to investigate the past sins involving the EPF or the bond scam. It seems very likely that the plundering of the EPF, like SriLankan Airlines, will permanently get pushed under the carpet. 

The local government elections will be a clear test as to how popular the UNP actually is, and if the two SLFP groups decide to contest together, the UNP will have a tough time, given all the baggage they have collected in the last 18 months by appointing wrong people who have done very little to help the Government to look good in the eyes of the public.